Preliminary Remark on the Meaning of “Recht”

The German term “Recht” has at least three meanings. First, it can refer to a specific legal entitlement held by an individual or a group of people. For instance, citizenship includes the entitlement (Recht) of a person to participate in general elections. Second, Recht can mean the order of legal norms as a whole (or specific parts of that order). Lawyers who have studied the order of law in general (or have specialized in certain parts of it, such as administrative law, international law, or contract law) are therefore called in German “Rechtsgelehrte.” Those who deal with the order of law from a philosophical perspective, accordingly, are termed “Rechtsphilosophen.” Third, Recht also has a moral meaning, and thus can be used to indicate that something qualifies as right, just, or fair. The opposite of Recht in this sense is Unrecht (injustice). A state governed in conformity with fair principles and the rule of law is commonly referred to as “Rechtsstaat.”

These three aspects of Recht frequently overlap. For instance, one can refer to the order of legal norms (the second meaning of Recht) and, at the same time, define this order normatively as one of political justice (thus invoking the third meaning of Recht). In the context of human rights (Menschenrechte), the universal entitlement of human beings to rights of freedom and equality (the first meaning) has become a decisive criterion for assessing the justice of legal norms.